SHIHNAN, DIOCESE of. — In the southern part of Hupeh province, in central China. It was erected as an apostolic vicariate on 14 June 1938, with five civil subprefectures from the apostolic vicariate of Ichang, and was entrusted to the Chinese secular clergy; on 11 April 1946, with the establishment of the episcopal hierarchy in China, it was elevated to a suffragan diocese of Hankow.
It has an area of 7,500 sq. km. As of 30 June 1947, out of a population of approximately 1,500,000 inhabitants, there were 7,850 Catholics and 220 catechumens; 9 Chinese priests and 5 foreign priests, 5 major seminarians and 13 minor seminarians; 38 sisters, all Chinese. Among its institutions were 2 orphanages, 3 medical dispensaries, and 15 schools.
The first Christian propaganda, begun in 1864 through occasional contacts between Christian families from Szechawan and pagan families of Tse-lo in the civil subprefecture of Li-chuan, within the territory of S., was pursued by a catechist sent to Tse-lo in 1865 and then, the following year, by a Chinese priest who came from Ichang and founded a well-established Christian community despite the open and violent opposition of the pagans. During the same years, a Christian community was founded in the city of S. through the work of another Chinese priest, the Rev. Gioacchino Lo, who, having become the target of violence by a pagan faction, moved to Ien-goshan, where he founded a second Christian community whose neophytes accepted with heroic fidelity the confiscation of their possessions and exile in 1882. These first seeds were developed by Frs. Teotimo Verhagen, later bishop and apostolic vicar, and Fiorenzo Robberecht, who, together with Fr. Federico Verhagen, Teotimo’s brother, and five Christians, were martyred in the persecution of 1904; this persecution nevertheless led to a more rapid spread of the faith also in the civil subprefectures of Suen-guen and Laifung.